Would it be possible for a no-fly zone to be created by the governments of the Arab League, if necessary with logistical assistance from NATO? To do so would defeat any argument that the zone was yet another example of western imperialists imposing their will on the Arab world. Surely Egypt, Jordan and some of the other Arab countries have the planes and pilots to do this. And I read somewhere that the league favored the creation of such a zone.

The article reads "The Military Balance" but it leaves out the tanks and artillery. Qaddafi will win this civil war because he holds the most of these. If you look at the map on the top of the article, it is immediately obvious that he will first have to consolidate the west of Lybia. Since the rebels cannot reinforce from the east, the rebels in Misurata and Zawiya are simply doomed.
Then, the west of Libya secured, he can focus his forces on the east in which his tanks will cut-off the rebels - town by town - from reinforcements and his artillery will then pound them until the time is ripe to send in the infantry. Armour is the key to war in the desert. It was shown by Rommel, by Moshe Dayan and by Schwartzkopf. Now it will again be shown by Qaddafi.

A) Initiate European Jamming Pod EJP project. FGAN and Thales to be primary contractors. EJP will be built from Commercial-Off-the-Shelf parts like commerical FPGAs, microprocessors, SRAM, commercial power transistors, commercial operating systems. EJPs will be mounted on surplus Tornado aircraft with all other weaponry and the WSO seat removed. Remote control Guardrail-style. Must be operational in one month. FGAN can do it.

B) All European ELINT and Airborne Warning aircraft to be deployed in Italy and Crete

C) Intelligence from SAR Lupe will be distributed to revolutionaries to provide early warning of land-based attacks.

D) Damage assessment from SAR Lupe and SPOT satellites.

E) Intelligence Support from GCHQ, BND, DGSE and hopefully NSA/UKUSA. Nobody will learn of that.

While the US should stay out of this whole affair, Europe's Air Force (meaning Luftwaffe, Armee de l'Air, Royal Air Force, Italian AF, Spanish AF, Polish AF, Swedish AF, Norwegian AF, Netherlands AF, Greek AF) CAN AND MUST impose a No-Flight Zone over Libya.
The rationale is
1.) Kadaffi is one of the worst tyrants with a lot of blood at his hands.

2.) He has repeatedly killed or maimed Europeans on European soil (London, Berlin, Lockerbie)

3.) Kadaffi is a habitual liar and blackmailer. "If you don't serve my needs, I will send you many more poor africans"

Operational Concept:

A) Setting up a Unified European Air Command for the time of the operation. This command has supreme authority of European Air Forces.

B) All airforces must be placed in high alert to protect the eastern flanks of Europe.

C) A sufficient number of Eurofighters, Tornado ECRs, Tornado Deep Strike a/c, F16s, Mig29s, A330MRTT, and other tankers to be assembled in Crete and Southern Italy.

D) Immediately start production of all required spare parts and alert the whole Supply Chain and Defense Logistics organizations. Initiate production of 300% of all expected spare part figures.

Events in Egypt and Libya demonstrate in the strongest terms to the world that Obama and the liberal (Left) West is so weak that it is onl;y capable of bringing down its friends by not supporting them, but when a bloodthirsty tyrant comes along the result is pathetic impotence.

It's far more stylish and politically chique to bash Israel or something along those lines.
Hey, Obama and friends, isn't it awful when nasty events like these make you show your true hand?

Libya is a huge sparsely populated country, where the rebel advance has been stymied due to 2 factors: (a) Qaddafi controlling heavier weapons than the opposition , which has allowed (b) continued Qadaffi control of a limited number of key transport nodes.
Despite being useful as a means of moving forces around, in terms of firepower the Libyan airforce has been fairly irrelevant up till now in the conflict (so many airstrikes by Qaddafi's air force and still hardly any results to show for it). So if we really want to help the rebels and stop Qaddafi from laying waste to more cities, don't focus your energy on the no fly zone as it would be a largely pointless drain of resources (repeatedly bombing all the SAM sites in libya, etc). Instead, announce & ensure that any use of artillery or tanks by Qaddafi against the rebels will result in airstrikes on these heavy weapons. Unlike the Libyan airforce's airstrikes, these are likely to be highly effective. This would make it much harder for Qaddafi to murder really large numbers of his own people, focus resources where they are most likely to do good, tip the military balance in the rebels favour, boost rebel morale by giving them real practical support on the ground, undermine the morale of those tribes still backing Qaddafi, set a clear trigger for intervention, and also set a limit on the extent of the intervention.

I really hope this will happen soon and that the world will move from talking to action. Until now there has been precious little action in this humanitarian crisis, but as in the case of Kosovo in the late 90's it does sometimes happen that the world moves from talk to actual intervention, if the humanitarian crisis is big enough.

To enforce a no fly zone on Libya wouldn't be a big problem,nor would be to estroy their SAM:no worse that to do the same job on Sebia,as NATO did.But the point is that Gedafi could win the war without using the air force:the insurgents have no training,no coordination,and their reseves of arms and ammunitions could end suddenly.Sooner or later,a landing of Western forces will be necessary.In NATO intervened in Serbai,Kosovo,Bosnia,i can't see why to keep distance from what happens in Lybia.

It is urgent that a no fly zone be imposed on Libya. It is also in the interest of the West and other powers with a concern for global peace and economic stability. The longer the civil war lasts in Libya, the more civilian casualties there will be (they have already reached about 6000). History teaches us that violence breeds violence and the more violent a revolution the more likely it is to lead to a radical regime. If the situation escalates further and casualties mount beyond a certain level, the international community will have to intervene anyway, but the cost will be higher and irreparable damage would have been done. The other reason for imposing a no fly zone to help with rapid regime change in Libya is economic. The longer oil production and export are disrupted there, the worse the impact on oil prices and therefore on the global economy, which can ill afford it at this time.

No Fly Zone? David Cameron must be joking. The RAF is being cut to its smallest size. There's no feasible way it can happen without reducing the number of Typhoon fighters on QRA--and ther are only three Typhoon squadrons and now five Tornado. One, the 31 Sqdn is being deployed to Afghanistan.

Note how some rebels prefer to reject western military help, in order to safeguard their indigenous credentials.

If this political calculation holds while they are fighting for their lives, such a calculation would certainly hold after they are safely in power, with all the oil money flowing in.

We should not have illusion that these rebels / revolutionaries (and their socio-political-tribal base) is basically oriented to work with (as opposed to working against) the West. The American public should not be naive with the rebels' / revolutionaries' rhetorics meant for consumption in the English-speaking world, but we should calculate our (enlightened) national self-interest, even as these rebels are calculating their self-interest.

This article has overlooked one central point: why and how a no-fly zone would be in the national interests of America and the EU countries?

That a Libyan says that he/she wants democracy -- that doesn't necessarily mean that he/she would actually respect democracy for OTHERS when democracy works against his/her own material interest, religion, or tribal loyalty. Anyone who ahs worked with teeagers knows that an outcry for "unfairness" is often merely a self-serving tactical moral positioning to start a bargaining session. The same is often true with "democracy". Note that North Korea is formally the "D-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-i-c People's Republic of Korea". We should not be so foolish to be manipulated by mere slogans.

That we all loathe Qaddafi does mean it is in our self-interest to rid of him, especially in light of his "mellowing" in recent years. There is such a thing as jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

I am not saying that all Libyan rebels / revolutionaries are not democrats, in the sense understood in the West (though I would suspect these are few and very far between). What I look for is historic evidence for democractic traits there is from this culture or people group. I am no expert on North Africa, but I doubt there exist many such democratic traits, istorically speaking. If that people has shown little historic competence in democracy, why should anyone believe these rebels' (revolutionaries') public relation slogans? If a teenage has little track record of responsible driving, I would be disinclined to believe his promise to drive safely, as he asks for the keys to the family car for a date.

So for me, the issue here is not necessarily democracy per se, but realist calculations in terms of geopolitics, terrorism concerns, geo-economics, and natural resources (of course). I read somewhere that a prolonged Libyan civil war could lead to greater infiltration of radical Islam. Such realist analysis would be useful.

David Cameron seems bent towards a no-fly zone. He should send the RAF to Gibraltar and set up a no-fly zone by himself- or better still, he should tell Obama that he is about to do this whether the Americans join or not. Then they will join (or look like they are not the true defenders of democracy, etc etc).

And don't say that the British can't do it by themselves. The RAF is quite large enough, and also we have our own territory near at hand (Gibraltar). What is more, was Qaddafi to start shooting down British planes, you can bet that Nato would instigate a no-fly zone.

The positions expressed by the U.S., Canada and other major U.K. allies regarding the establishment of a Libya no-fly zone mirror the UK's on this issue: IE- 'nothing is off the table' and there is planning occurring between the UK and allies regarding how, hypothetically, a no-fly zone could be enforced over Libya- if required...

Despite Libya being a metaphorical stone's throw from Continental Europe, the EU, European Court of Justice, many of the UN's most important 'human rights' and governance bodies- and despite the ease that a no-fly zone over Libya could be enforced militarily by the EU's member countries' airforces- and despite the immense productive use a no fly zone would be to Libya's brave, rightfully rebelling population.... zero action from the EU and its member countries regarding supporting Libya's population in their highly disadvantaged fight against a tyrannical and despotic dictatorship...

Almost 10-years ago the majority of EU member countries expressed strong and direct opposition to the U.S.- and the U.K.- in their actions against Iraq- whose peoples were not protesting/demanding positive changes to their countries' governance models and the imposition of human rights-based democracy there....

Today when confronted with malgoverned, abusive-to-human-rights dictatorships such as Libya's and Bahrain's whose populations are loudly- and at great risk to themselves- demanding democratic, human rights-based democratic governance and rule-of-law- these same EU member countries hide behind intellectually dishonest, cowardly excuses for their self-interest-motivated inaction....
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The Middle East's countries' peoples are speaking with virtual unanimity: they want to be able to live in countries where the rights, freedoms and rule-of-law democratic governance that those in the west take for granted are no longer denied to them...

Of the many available 'soft-power' options that the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and their international partners ought to be considering regarding the middle east turmoil is offering substantial, tangible long-term assistance to Middle East countries in putting in place the structures required for universal-suffrage democracy, human-rights-based rule-of-law legal apparatus, and democracy-based national constitutions ...

One such way towards this type of assistance-objective could be the establishment of a "Democracy and Human Rights-Based Rule-Of-Law Governance 'University'" by Commonwealth countries in a prominent Middle East country or countries...

Such a facility- at least initially- ideally could be paid for and administered by British Commonwealth countries possessing human-rights-based rule-of-law and democratic governance structures, in cooperation with the host country(s)...

The enforcement of a comprehensive no fly zone over Libya; logistical support to Libyan protesters; and humanitarian assistance for the 10s of thousands of foreign nationals attempting to leave Libya are types of assistance that, in the short term- the west is unarguably obligated to provide.... but a longer term "constructive assistance" strategy for not only Libya but also the wider region plainly needs to be part of any response by the United Kingdom, Canada, the U.S. and their allies to the Middle East's peoples in their brave struggles to bring about positive changes within their countries and to improve the lives of all peoples in this far too-long troubled region...